What is American?

Robert Frank created an American masterpiece in 1959 with the U.S. release of his cross-country photo-documentary trip The Americans. Popularized over time, Frank’s work is now seen as the pinnacle of work documenting that era in American society.

His images are raw, exposing both the hardships and the quaintness of a time defined by tumultuous change in technology and social structures. Frank’s images are relevant even today, as few artists have dared to explore the abyss that is American culture.

One artist who has followed in the footsteps of Frank is Georgia resident Mark Steinmetz. Steinmetz’s biography is not exclusive to capturing us Americans and our culture. Early on, his subjects were children, then a collection of images taken in France and Italy, followed by a period of nature photographs of Tuscan trees as well as vines and sunflowers.

Deviations aside, Steinmetz’s work does involve the underlying theme of discovering American culture. Once documenting a summer camp and then a little-league baseball team, one can’t help but think of these subjects in an Americanized limelight.

His first meaningful attempt at documenting American lifestyles was in a collection titled Akron/Boston/Chicago. The collection spanned a 10-year period from 1990 to 2000 that unveiled American moments of beauty and distress.

The unique nature of the South prompted Steinmetz to focus his lens on places and people that he was a part of, who he knew and understood. South Central and South East were the results of this project, which was also shot between 1990 and 2000.

The images he captured paint a timeless portrayal of a place often romanticized and shrouded under the charm of southern hospitality and easy living. Both collections reveal the Steinmetz theme of utilizing both people and landscapes to tell the general story.

Greater Atlanta is Steinmetz’s latest work, which began at the same time as South Central yet was finally completed in 2008. For this project, Steinmetz uses Atlanta as his base city to shed light on not only the people, cultures and lifestyles of Atlanta but to use this city as the model for what we all look like, act like and collect.

Steinmetz focuses on all of our quirks, from fast food to car dependence. His lens gives commentary without being preachy and his bottom line is always a crisp and refreshing look at the people, places and things that make up our American lives.

Juxtaposing the 1950s work of Frank with the 18-year collection from Steinmetz gives an even more fascinating look into culture when we realize that once it’s all broken down, things haven’t changed that much. Take away the color and we’ll always have those moments that define our culture: hot summer days, depressed convenience store employees, traffic and the memory of our first kiss happening in the back seat of a car.